


No man's an island

by sirona



Series: I stand in front of you, I'll take the force of the blow [3]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Phil just wants to take care of Clint, Pining, Protective Phil, Sickfic, Stupid Boys, stealth caring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-10
Updated: 2013-10-10
Packaged: 2017-12-29 00:57:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/998958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sirona/pseuds/sirona
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint is sick, but apparently he still wouldn't recognise R&R if it bit him on the ass, and Phil? Well. He has always cared a little too much, so why stop now?</p>
            </blockquote>





	No man's an island

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FlatlandDan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlatlandDan/gifts).



> For flatlanddan, who is poorly, and requested sick Clint haunting the corridors of SHIELD wrapped in a blanket, and Phil Not Having It. Takes place pre-Avengers but post-Iron Man 2. 
> 
> Sticking it in the Protective!Phil series, because, really. #hopelesssap The stories in this series are unrelated.

There's a strange shuffle-like noise in the corridor outside his door. Phil only registers this vaguely, in the distracted manner of someone who is sitting in an office deep in the bowels of one of the world's most heavily fortified buildings, with security triggers that could make going for a cup of coffee into an obstacle course for those unaccustomed to minding their every step with a possibly unhealthy level of paranoia. 

The shuffle is getting closer. There is no reason for Phil to look up - but there's also no reason to restrain his curiosity, so - he does.

"No," he says, after a mere fraction of a second of taking in the sight. There is no thought involved – it's instinctive, comes from a part of him that needs no instructions from his conscious mind. 

Barton blinks at him muzzily. His hair is standing up on one side, neat on the other; his shoulders are swathed in a fleece blanket in an eye-gouging shade of purple, the edges of which he clutches to his chest. His eyes are suspiciously glassy and his nose is an unattractive shade of blotchy red – or it would be, if Phil could force himself to find any part of Barton unattractive.

"What are you doing here?" Phil demands, having trouble working out which part of the sentence to put more emphasis on and therefore opting for _everywhere_.

Barton gives him a woebegone look. It is _not_ adorable. Or heart-melting. Really. 

"My room’s all stuffy, an' it's too hot," he complains. He sounds absolutely deplorable; his sinuses are obviously inflamed, and his throat sounds like he's been—

Phil kills that train of thought swiftly and violently. Barton is _sick_ , and Phil is a sick man to even think about sex now. Not that there's any chance of that, anyway. With Barton. Ever.

Stop it, Phillip J. Coulson, you utter asshole.

"You need to get into a bed this instant," Phil says anyway, because apparently he's a dick, and he has to learn to live with that. "I can't believe you're even upright right now."

Clint sniffs. It's so pathetic Phil wants to coo, which will be the absolute end of his reputation. He also wants to tackle Barton into a bed and for once only swaddle him in blankets and duvets and pillows and make him tea and chicken matzo ball soup (the only thing he inherited from his Jewish great-aunt). 

"Can't sleep," Clint admits sadly. "There's this white noise in my head that's making me want to throw up. Can I—"

He cuts himself off, turning hopeful eyes on the mess of a sofa crammed into one corner of Phil's office. That sofa is a furniture vet; it has survived Nick Fury's – uh, fury, and Phil's own frequent sleepovers, and Natasha's attempts to turn it into a pincushion, and Stark's dramatic falling-against-things (though that last one only happened a couple of surreality-infused times). It has also played nursemaid to too many SHIELD personnel who wouldn't know downtime if it cut them off at the knees. Barton and that sofa are long-time intimate friends, much to Phil's bemusement. Even before they had gelled as a team, Clint had claimed the poor abused thing for his perch and used it as high ground from whence to poke at Phil until he snapped and kicked him out (well. In theory. Phil hasn't so much gotten around to practising on Barton what he preaches with everyone else). 

"Sit your ass down," Phil sighs, pretending not to watch as Clint shuffles over and flops down on the sofa, curling up into a ball of miserable snuffling. He spreads the blanket on top of himself, then reaches over and paws at the throw over the back of the sofa until that falls over him, too. Then, he lets out a sigh that seems to come from his toes, like at last he is exactly where he wants to be (wishful thinking, Phil, you sap).

Phil is not entirely surprised when, within three minutes of settling, Clint is fast asleep. Sometimes even just a change of setting succeeds where hours of irritated tossing and turning can't, and Phil can't really help the stab of something-or-other (he's not putting a name to it. He has that much self-preservation left, at least) in his chest at the sight, at the fact that this was the place Barton sought out when all else failed. Phil doesn't mind being a last resort, as long as he's at least on the list.

Clint sleeps for three hours straight. Phil keeps working steadily through, trying not to make any sharp movements, but keeping up a low level of common, everyday noises, because trying to keep unnaturally silent will wake Cl-Barton up faster than anything else. It's a byproduct of his upbringing, and his employment. The fact is, the mere thought of letting Clint wake up alone is abhorrent, so Phil sits in his chair and reads through file after file and tries not to sigh too loudly and groan every now and again at some of the junior agents' misguided beliefs of what reports should look like. He's been telling Fury for years that they need a seminar on report writing, but would he listen?

"Christ," he grumbles quietly to himself as he turns a page and is faced with a diagram of a field of engagement that a four-year-old could better. 

There's a huff from the sofa, the rasp of Clint's head turning on the pillow. His breathing is still as slow and even as his cold allows, but when Phil looks over there's a smile quirking Clint’s mouth, and he is being observed through eyes cracked open the slightest bit. 

"Bet you're thinking longingly of my reports right now, sir," he says wryly.

"Nothing can ever be bad enough to warrant that," Phil replies automatically, and doesn't smile when Clint pouts. 

"You're so mean to me," Barton complains, but there's no heat in it, because both he and Barton know that's not really true; and besides, Barton likes it when Phil's mean – he gets that look in his eyes like he's laughing gleefully on the inside when Phil returns his banter.

Phil never really thought he was the pining away from a distance type, until Clint Barton pinged on his radar. It causes Jasper _no_ end of amusement (accordingly, he has been promised certain, gruesome, painful death if he ever lets any of that slip to anyone else). 

When Phil doesn't reply apart from raising an eyebrow at him, Barton smirks and closes his eyes again. He tugs the blankets tighter around his shoulders. Phil watches him for another illicit moment, before getting up and calmly walking out. It takes him about ten minutes to get down to the cafeteria, procure two steaming mugs of tea, and returning to his office, but in that time Barton has clearly struggled upright and is glaring at the door like it has betrayed him most vilely. His eyebrows rise, and he blinks when he sees the drinks in Phil's hands, but he also smiles gratefully, making 'gimme' motions at one of the mugs. He buries his nose in it when Phil hands it over, inhaling with relish. He takes a sip and actually, honest-to-god moans. Phil is so startled he almost drops his mug.

"Oh, that's better," Clint mutters under his breath, almost like he hadn't meant to say it. He looks up, giving Phil a small smile that nevertheless would make him catch his breath if he were in the habit of behaving like the hero in those intrepid romances his sister refuses to admit she adores.

Barton's phone goes before he has a chance to finish his tea, the whining, moody guitar intro to _Boys Wanna Be Her_. Natasha, then.

"'Lo?" Clint says, once he's wrangled it to his ear without removing his face from the vicinity of the steam rising from the mug. All of a sudden, he looks shifty, throwing Phil the briefest of looks before his eyes dart guiltily away again. "Yeah," he mumbles, with an air of being caught doing something he shouldn't be doing. Phil cannot begin to fathom what that could have to do with him, but he is not in the habit of ignoring evidence just because it doesn't make sense. 

Barton shuffles until his elbows are on his knees, holding the phone in place with his shoulder so he can rub his freed hand over his face. "Really?" he says, wincing. "Now? No, no, I'm-it's not that bad," he lies unconvincingly. He sounds like death warmed up, and that's without taking into account the fact that he looks it, too. "Ugh, shut up," he whines, but adds, "Yeah, alright. Thanks. Speak to you later," before thumbing the call button off. He lowers the mug gingerly to the floor and rubs his hands over his face again.

"I guess I should fuck off and let you get home, huh?" he says with what's quite possibly negative level of enthusiasm, avoiding Phil's eyes, and Phil makes a decision that, despite the fact it's a monumentally bad idea for his equilibrium, he is apparently committed to enough to voice it.

"If you want to get away from base for a while, I make a mean matzo ball soup," he says, and doesn't let himself wince/bite his lip/slap his forehead/take it back. He doesn't really want to take it back, anyway.

Clint's eyes are wide and very blue, despite the shine of what is quite possibly fever. "Really?" he says. He sounds...small, and young, and desperately hopeful while still trying to pretend he doesn't care, and Phil could say his heart doesn't ache, but, well, he'd be lying.

"Really," he says firmly. He can't stand the thought of Clint alone in his room over the entire weekend, and he's probably doing Natasha a disservice thinking she'd let him, but it's still not something he can abide. 

"That—that would be amazing, actually," Clint admits. He smiles again, tentative, and Phil lets himself give him a smile back. 

Fuck it. It's just soup, for God's sake, get a grip, Coulson.

Soup or not, Clint is looking at him like he hung the moon, and while Phil is not stupid enough to read things into it that aren't there, he also isn't stupid enough to not know that he isn’t going to get many opportunities to spend time with Clint like that, even if there is precisely zero chance of anything more happening between them. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like this stupid crush is going away on its own, so he’s going to have to increase exposure to its cause until the feeling numbs down. Or something.

So.

"Let's go," he says, turning off his laptop and palming his keys. If his hand hovers behind Clint''s back as he precedes him out of the door, and if he tugs at the blanket ever-so-slightly, so that it covers Clint’s shoulders better, well. No one needs to know.


End file.
